The Lizardman standing before Rei wore matching armor—leaving no doubt it was one of Zozo's comrades.
Those Lizardmen were currently facing off against the adventurers guarding the woodcutters.
Seeing this, Rei let out a breath of relief.
They appeared hostile, but the fact that it was still a standoff was fortunate.
If either side had suffered injuries—or worse, deaths—neither would have been able to back down, making it highly likely the situation would fester into something far more complicated.
(The woodcutters have collapsed on their backsides, but that... well, doesn't count as an injury.)
Rei could easily surmise that they were probably startled by the Lizardmen's sudden appearance.
"Rei!"
One of the adventurer guards called out, his face brightening with visible relief at the sight of Rei.
It was only natural. With Rei present, they understood that defeating the Lizardmen before them would be no difficult feat.
And once the adventurers noticed Rei, the Lizardmen facing them naturally took notice as well.
What appeared on the Lizardmen's faces, however, was confusion.
They clearly could not perceive Rei as any sort of threat.
Judging by appearance alone, he was small, and the fact that he was not accompanied by Set or Zozo only reinforced that impression.
If he had brought them along, they might have been warier of him.
Zozo in particular was unmistakably a higher-ranking existence than the Lizardmen before him, even from Rei's perspective.
"Well then... for now, shall I be your opponent?"
Saying this, Rei drew the Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear from his Misty Ring.
That said, it wasn't as though the question of whether it was fine to simply fight them hadn't crossed his mind.
Part of it was hesitation about killing the Lizardmen. There was also the concern that even if he defeated them without killing, they might end up tamed and following him like Zozo.
Having Set and Zozo alone was already fairly demanding; any more monsters following him would clearly and inevitably increase his burden, and his honest feeling was that he wanted to avoid that.
That said, the Lizardmen clearly looked ready to fight, and there was no doubt that if Rei retreated, they would seize the opening to attack.
"Can't be helped. We can't stay like this forever... come on."
The Lizardmen, naturally, could not understand Rei's words.
But even so, they must have grasped from the nuance of his tone—and above all, from the way he readied his weapons—that Rei intended to fight.
The several Lizardmen at the front each raised their weapons...
"●●●●●●●●●!"
In that instant, a war cry echoed through the surroundings.
Who had let out that war cry was obvious without a second thought.
"You came, Zozo."
Rei called out to Zozo, who had emerged from a spot slightly apart from him.
At Rei's voice, Zozo bowed—and seeing this, the other Lizardmen directed disbelieving stares at Rei.
(The way these guys treat Zozo... what's going on here? Was Zozo really not just an ordinary Lizardman after all?)
Rei could understand the Lizardmen who had come with Zozo following him. But that was simply because Zozo was their superior.
And yet, for newly transferred Lizardmen—who were the same race as Zozo—to follow a Lizardman from a different unit was clearly questionable.
(Or maybe it's because Zozo outranks whoever leads this unit...? If the one commanding this unit is like a lieutenant or captain, then Zozo would be something like a major or colonel.)
Rei mulled this over as he watched the Lizardmen staring at Zozo in astonishment, but before his thoughts could settle, Zozo was already moving.
Rising from his bow, he strode directly toward the newly arrived Lizardmen.
Written across his face was anger.
Zozo's bearing made it clear: the Lizardmen who had defied Rei were unforgivable.
That said, Zozo himself had underestimated Rei based on appearance when they first met, and had ended up receiving a painful lesson in return.
"●●●●●, Rei●●!"
Zozo barked something in his alien tongue.
As always, Rei had no idea what he was saying, but since Rei's name was woven into those words, he could gather that Zozo was telling them not to show Rei any disrespect.
"Rei! ...I see."
The next to arrive at the scene was Marina.
Elena and Vihera followed shortly after, with the rest of the adventurers, soldiers, and Knights trailing well behind.
Marina being the first to reach the scene was likely because, as a Dark Elf, she was accustomed to forests.
...Zozo being the very first to arrive, however, remained something Rei found puzzling in various ways.
He forcibly convinced himself it was probably born of loyalty from being tamed.
"The situation is as you can see. Thinking about it, it's only natural—but just because they transfer here doesn't mean they have to appear right in front of people. The Treant Forest is vast enough that they could have appeared anywhere."
"True. ...Though so far they've all been transferring into the Treant Forest, we can't be certain they always will."
"If we had Set with us, we'd be able to sense the signs of a transfer."
Elena added this in response to Marina's words.
Since Set had actually sensed the transfer of Lunora and Zozo's group, those words carried considerable persuasive weight.
(In other words, these Lizardmen transferred while I was away in Gilm. The question is whether they came through at the same time as the green demi-humans Lunora took by carriage, or at a different point entirely.)
Judging by the timing, Rei guessed they had likely arrived simultaneously.
It was not based on any concrete evidence—just intuition.
While they were talking, Zozo approached Rei with the other Lizardmen in tow.
The very Lizardmen who had been locked in a hair-trigger standoff with the adventurers moments ago now followed Zozo, which by extension meant they followed Rei, whom Zozo served.
"Rei●●, ●●●●●●, ●●●."
"Ah, yeah. Got it. Well, I don't actually understand you, but I can tell you've brought those Lizardmen under control."
Rei judged this from Zozo's demeanor and the Lizardmen's attitudes, then gestured for Zozo to head toward where the carriages were parked.
"We just finished hauling off the green demi-humans, but we'll need another one to come."
"Right. The people who use carriages in Gilm are going to be run off their feet."
"That said, it's just the butler and a handful of people coming by carriage, isn't it? ...Oh, but this time it's Lizardmen, so we'll need to be more careful about that."
The green demi-humans, including Lunora, were fundamentally gentle in temperament.
That was precisely why Daskar had been able to dispatch a carriage to retrieve them without excessive caution.
But with Lizardmen, the story was different.
They were docile enough now that Zozo was present, but a battle with the woodcutters and their adventurer guards could have erupted at any moment just minutes ago.
Under those circumstances, Daskar would not be able to send a carriage with peace of mind.
"It'd be nice if Zozo could go with them..."
Marina murmured this while eyeing Zozo, but anyone who understood even slightly how Zozo behaved toward Rei would have known that asking would be futile.
"In that case, wouldn't Rei have to go with them?"
"...Looks that way."
As far as Rei was concerned, he would prefer to avoid a slow, plodding journey by carriage if at all possible.
It wasn't as though the idea of using the Set Basket to transport everyone at once hadn't occurred to him, but there was the problem of how to get creatures he couldn't properly communicate with onto the Set Basket—and beyond that, the concern that the Set Basket might be destroyed during the few minutes of transit.
If that was the case, then even if it was somewhat troublesome, he should travel by carriage with Zozo to prevent an even bigger problem from arising... Just as that thought took shape, he noticed that all the Lizardmen were kneeling before Elena and Ielo.
"Ah... right. Come to think of it, this happened before. Wait, not just Zozo—the other Lizardmen too, huh? ...Huh? But at the Lord's Manor..."
Seeing the kneeling Lizardmen, Rei recalled what had happened at the Lord's Manor.
Ielo hadn't been present since it was playing with Set, but Elena should have been there.
If so, it wouldn't have been strange for the Lizardmen to kneel just as they were doing now.
(Does that mean this kind of behavior varies depending on the type of Lizardman? No, but then why would the Lizardmen from Zozo's unit...)
He decided that dwelling on it at this point was meaningless, and reconsidered—he could just ask once Zozo learned the language.
"Looking at this, it seems like Elena and Ielo could handle the transport too..."
"That may be true, but you'd be better off not doing that."
Marina immediately shot down Rei's suggestion.
Why? Rei wondered for just a moment, but then the meaning clicked.
Because Elena was in Gilm first and foremost as a Noble Faction noble.
Asking her to take on work meant there was a high probability of various troublesome consequences down the line.
...In truth, Rei had asked Elena to do various things before, but those were strictly personal matters.
This situation, by contrast, could easily be perceived as official business.
In other words, it would mean Daskar—or more broadly, the Neutral Faction—would end up owing a debt to the Noble Faction.
It was not quite so grandiose a matter as all that, but it was an undeniable fact that there would be those who saw it that way, and who would think accordingly.
That was exactly why Marina had stopped it.
Even if Daskar, Elena, and Duke Kerebel himself didn't mind, there would undoubtedly be those who would take issue purely because it involved the Noble Faction.
It would be far from surprising if someone—simply by virtue of belonging to the Noble Faction—came demanding some concession from Neutral Faction nobles other than Daskar, on the grounds that a debt existed from this incident.
No, even Duke Kerebel couldn't be entirely ruled out. The special ability to grow plants possessed by Lunora's group, and contact with Lizardmen who had even formed their own nation, were enormously significant in terms of building inter-faction ties. Given stakes that high, it was impossible to completely dismiss the possibility that even Duke Kerebel might make some move.
Under normal circumstances, the likelihood of such behavior would be extremely low, but this was precisely the kind of incident where such a situation could arise without being strange.
That was why Daskar needed to proceed with caution, and in that sense, Marina's argument was that entrusting the transport of the Lizardmen to Elena and Ielo, as Rei had suggested, should be avoided as much as possible.
Having unfortunately grasped what she meant, Rei had no choice but to respect Marina's opinion.
"I can follow what Rei and Marina are discussing, but is there really any need to have it deliberately in front of me?"
Elena, who had been listening to the conversation, asked with a faint note of exasperation.
Marina merely tilted her head with a smile, as if to say, "Is that so?"
"This is a significant event for Elena too, isn't it? If so, I don't think what I'm saying is particularly unreasonable."
"I won't deny that."
Elena replied curtly to Marina's words.
Rei watched the exchange between the two before finally opening his mouth with a look of resignation.
"Got it. Then I'll go with Zozo to deliver the Lizardmen. There's no doubt that's the only option anyway. ...Would be nice if there were a disposable Set Basket or something that wouldn't matter if it broke."
Rei muttered in an annoyed tone, but the Set Basket was unquestionably a quite expensive item.
Asking for something similar—even something meant to be disposable—would be unreasonable no matter how you looked at it.
"That's a bit much. But if disposable is fine, you could always just build a simple wooden box and have someone or something ride inside it for transport, couldn't you? Though if you build it carelessly, it might fall apart mid-flight."
Rei imagined the scene Marina described... and decided, for the time being, to simply accept the slow journey by carriage.